This blog looks back at classic sports telecasts and announcers (primarily from the mid-1960s to present), provides DVR alerts for upcoming classic programming, and covers other historical aspects of sports media.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Legendary broadcasterVerne Lundquist has been the lead CBS college football announcer since 2000. Verne got his network start calling regional telecasts on ABC back in the 1970s. His first game in the ABC booth was Ohio at Kent State on 9/21/1974.

Here is a collection of clips of Lundquist calling an ABC game in 1978 between Texas A&M and Arkansas - both members of the now defunct Southwest Conference. I find it quite interesting to hear how Verne sounded on the air some 35 years ago.

The analyst on this game from 11/18/1978 was former Air Force coach Ben Martin whose voice appears only briefly on this video.

Friday, November 15, 2013

Tomorrow marks the first ever college basketball game on the Fox network as Ohio State faces Marquette at 1 pm ET with Brian Anderson andJim Jackson on the call. Here is a rundown of some other first college basketball regular season (including conference tournament) telecasts for various national TV network packages in the "modern era" (which I define as beginning with the syndicated 1968 UCLA-Houston telecast):

first on ABC
Sat 12/15/1973, UCLA vs NC State (at St Louis), 5 pm, Keith Jackson, Bill Russell
(Note: not part of a package, but a single-game deal arranged by ABC after losing NBA rights)

first on NBC as part of the national package it began in the 1970s
Sat 11/29/1975, Indiana vs UCLA (at St Louis), 11:30 pm, Dick Enberg, Billy Packer
(Note: this was a live telecast - the game started at 10:30 local time)

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

The Big Ten Network debuts a documentary on the 1973 Ohio State-Michigan football game at 7 pm ET on Saturday 11/16. Both teams entered that contest unbeaten, but the game ended in a 10-10 tie leaving the two teams tied for the league championship. The 60-minute documentary titled Tiebreaker also focuses on the controversial vote by Big 10 athletic directors to determine which school would represent the conference in the Rose Bowl. The documentary sounds awesome. The BTN also plans a few re-airings.

The BTN provided a preview clip of the film:

and here is a portion of the original ABC telecast of that game. ABC carried it nationally on 11/24/1973 with Chris Schenkel and Duffy Daugherty in the booth.